Mariah is this year's Christmas girl

Mariah Carey is this year’s Christmas girl. This is because her Merry Christmas II You is one of the hit Christmas CDs of the moment and she has a perky new single in Oh Santa! Co-written by Mariah with multi-platinum selling producers Jermaine Dupri and Brian Michael Cox, the song shows promise of becoming a future Christmas standard. Just in case you have forgotten, Mariah was responsible for one of the most popular Holiday songs of recent years, All I Want for Christmas Is You, that she co-wrote with Walter Afanasieff for Merry Christmas, her first Christmas album released in 1994.

Merry Christmas remains one of Mariah’s best. She was vocally at her peak then and confident in her own style. She could twist her notes any which way and still come out sounding great. A solid production, the album had fun cuts, like rock band Three Dog Night’s take on Joy To The World and the good old Santa Claus is Coming To Town; plus sentimental ballads, Miss You Most At Christmastime or a very heartfelt Silent Night; and there is also gospel as in the rousing closing song, Jesus What A Wonderful Child.

Sixteen years passed until Mariah came up with Merry Christmas II You last November. As expected, the production is impeccable and while her first one was a very good pop album, her second is presented on a grander scale. She once more made sure she has something for everyone. Do you want a soulful Mariah ballad? There is the new original she co-wrote Christmas Time Is In The Air Again. What about a traditional Christmas carol? The O Little Town Of Bethlehem and Little Drummer Boy medley is a gem. Do you want something cute and playful? There is the Oh Santa! single and a hip-hop tinged hand-clapped version All I Want For Christmas Is You.

So I think, who would have known that she could do something different with these songs and make them sound like new? And that is the main reason why I like this album. Mariah and her producers put a lot of thought and work into it. This is no case of, just sing a Christmas song, and then another and another and you’ll make a CD. Every cut here carefully chosen and was made to enhance her singing, to fully bring out the beauty of the songs and most of all, to give the listeners a great experience. The result is music that relaxes and evokes warm, toasty feelings. This is how Christmas should feel like.

Merry Christmas II You also includes the Santa Claus Is Coming To Town Intro; The First Noel/ Born Is The King Interlude; Here Comes Santa Claus/ Housetop Celebration; Charlie Brown Christmas; O Holy Night; Auld Lang Syne, more originals co-written by Mariah, When Christmas Comes and One Child; and a majestic medley of O Come All Ye Faithful and Hallelujah Chorus featuring Patricia Carey, who I was surprised to find out is Mariah’s opera singing mother. The talent for fantastic vocals runs in her family.

Meanwhile here are some of the must have Christmas albums of the moment by foreign acts. Aside from Mariah’s Merry Christmas II You, there are: The Gift by Susan Boyle who is Mariah’s main rival for Christmas girl of the year honors: Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album by the cast of the TV series Glee; Noel by Josh Groban; My Christmas by Andrea Bocelli and David Foster, which is also available on DVD; Now That’s What I Call Christmas by Various Artists; the EP Let It Snow by Michael Bublé, which I hope producer David Foster will soon expand into a full album.

A Merry Little Christmas by the hot country group Lady Antebellum; The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection by Taylor Swift; Elvis Christmas by Elvis Presley, which is actually a reissue of Presley’s very first Christmas LP from the late ’50s; the classic Christmas With The Chipmunks by The Chipmunks with creator David Seville from the early ‘60s and not to forget, Mariah’s Merry Christmas CD. Incidentally, one of the highlights of the latter worth mentioning is a soulful cover of the Darlene Love original, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), which was first recorded in the ‘60s.